3 Things Successful People Do Differently and Why I Don’t Follow Them

March 15, 2018

Lately I have been seeing so many blogposts and articles about what successful people do differently than non-successful people. How they wake up super early to meditate and have breakfast, they spend their Sundays planning for the week ahead, they workout on the regular and eat healthy, and so on and so forth. Here is why I don’t do those things.

Eating healthy and planning your meals is all fun and games, but life happens, and I am okay with it.

I mean, yes, whenever I can, I would opt for homemade food (as long as we can think of something because we live in a constant “What should we have for dinner” loop), but I can’t meal prep. I know I won’t be eating the rice I cooked 3 days ago, why would I keep the container in the refrigerator for a week only to throw out its contents (this is real life, peeps, I have done that a few times)?

I also don’t see Sundays as a day to prepare for the following week. Life happens, people. Do you plan each and every second of your day? Does it always go as planned? No? I didn’t think so. For me, it almost never goes as planned, so I have stopped planning my weeks so obsessively. I use todoist (best thing ever, honestly) for appointments I have and it frees my mind so much, but that’s about it. Basically, when I have any kind of appointment I quickly type it down right after the conversation. This way I don’t have to double and triple check and wonder whether we really agreed for this date and time, or I was only thinking of it (OCD people, you know what I mean). Such little things help my mind relax a little.

Waking up earlier to meditate, or waking up earlier as a whole, really, is also not something I am going to start doing. I do wake up early enough for my day job and dog walking and coffee drinking, breakfast eating and makeuping, I have no desire to wake up even earlier.

Because the earlier I wake up, I just spend more time being unproductive. Hear me out. Let’s say I wake up at 6:00 and I have to go to work at 9:00. I wake up, make coffee, drink the coffee for as long as I want, go out with the dog, get ready, go to work, then come home at around 18:00 and I have already been up for 12 hours of the day. At this moment, I am exhausted and I just need to relax. And the moment I relax, I fall asleep (no, really).

So I wake up later and I am multitasking instead – I wake up at 7:30, make coffee, drink it while I am out with the doggo, get ready, go to work, come home and don’t actually feel like sleeping right off the bat.

You would ask me why I don’t multitask when I wake up earlier. the answer is simple – I don’t want to. I like taking my time to drink my coffee. I like taking my time to do my make up. And if I do have that time, I will use it.

And while I understand people wanting to wake up earlier, and I understand that there are people who actually stick to the weekly plan they set up on Sunday, I know that I am not this type of person. For now.

Now it’s your time to share – do you usually plan your weeks’ activities? Do you read such articles and follow what these people do religiously? Have you ever found anything that has been useful for you? Let me know in the comments below, I am interested to find out whether I am missing out on something here!

The December Dame

This was such an interesting read! You always hear the same advice about successful people doing this and successful people doing that, but I always think that they can’t ALL be getting up and meditating at 5 am. C’mon – there must be also successful people who just wake up at 9 am too. Maybe one day I will be an early riser but for now I’ve discovered that the earlier I rise, the sleepier I get around noon! And I’m with you, the more time I have to do things, the more I just stretch my time out inefficiently.

The December Dame

Nowt wrong with last minute scrambling for meals during the week! Before I started traveling (aka until last Friday) I was working 45 hours a week, plus an intense commute and other bits and bobs. People telling you how to plan your life is far more stressful than going to Tescos reduced section on the way back from work! And I agree with the waking up early thing too; we all have different body clocks and should listen to what they need (and sometimes an extra hour in bed is EXACTLY what we need). xx